My wife`s 1995 Corolla with automatic trans has the differential mated to it, but seperate fill and drains. The manual calls for ATF in the differential. At 130,000 miles, I was driving at about 55mph when I heard a bearing sound, before I could stop, the differential self destructed. It had the proper level of ATF, and I had changed it 11,000 miles before. There were no other indications of trans or differential problems. My friend has the same car, but with a manual trans, his differential shares the 90w with the trans. Why does the automatic with seperate differential use ATF? ATF seems too light for differential use. Could I put 90 weight in it? Any recommendations? Should I run synthetic ATF in the differential? BTW, I bought a used trans and installed it. Thanks for any advice, Doug
ATF in the differential?
- Thread starter Sundug
- Start date
- Status
How many other times were the ATF changed prior to the failure?
Many front wheel drive vehicles use a common fluid for the transmission and the axle, and they call this combination a transaxle.
JH
JH
Be careful in your reasoning here.
Transverse engines typically have spur gears or helical gears on them. They can get away with little anti-wear additive, and wuite light oils.
Longitudinal engines use a spiral bevel gear on the "T" direction changes, and need a lot more anti-wear additive, and geanerally a thicker oil.
Transverse engines typically have spur gears or helical gears on them. They can get away with little anti-wear additive, and wuite light oils.
Longitudinal engines use a spiral bevel gear on the "T" direction changes, and need a lot more anti-wear additive, and geanerally a thicker oil.
when you changed it 11k miles prior, was the old stuff obviously ATF? i can see them separating the two to help insure no debris gets into the valves, but i don't remember ever seeing a diff-only section use ATF.
-michael
-michael
Sundug,
don't know what to offer to you but I wanted to chime in venting on ATF in front differential. My previous AT cars I owned (Nissan sentra and Mazda protege) both blew AT transmissions (Nissan twice: at 50000 and 90000 miles) with evidence of messed up differentials which started the problems or at least contributed to (both had transaxles). I am not convinced that ATF is enough for differential lube, at least with hard driving.
My AT Subaru (2000) has 2 separate diffs (front and rear) from AT, both lubed with 75W90 oil. I changed to synthetic gear oil (redline) at 40000, saw a lot of metal in old oil. These gears require some serius lubrication!
My AT Corolla (2003) has a very small transaxle running hot at highway speeds (up to 220F). Even though it is filled with Toyota type-IV fluid (suposedly synthetic, not sure myself) I am concerned how long it will last. The manual states the fluid does not need to be replaced, can you believe it! BS in my opinion.
So anyhow, at least put some quality ATF in. I remember from my research that redline has some heavy duty synthetic Dexron-style ATF for higher temp or so.
Good luck...
don't know what to offer to you but I wanted to chime in venting on ATF in front differential. My previous AT cars I owned (Nissan sentra and Mazda protege) both blew AT transmissions (Nissan twice: at 50000 and 90000 miles) with evidence of messed up differentials which started the problems or at least contributed to (both had transaxles). I am not convinced that ATF is enough for differential lube, at least with hard driving.
My AT Subaru (2000) has 2 separate diffs (front and rear) from AT, both lubed with 75W90 oil. I changed to synthetic gear oil (redline) at 40000, saw a lot of metal in old oil. These gears require some serius lubrication!
My AT Corolla (2003) has a very small transaxle running hot at highway speeds (up to 220F). Even though it is filled with Toyota type-IV fluid (suposedly synthetic, not sure myself) I am concerned how long it will last. The manual states the fluid does not need to be replaced, can you believe it! BS in my opinion.
So anyhow, at least put some quality ATF in. I remember from my research that redline has some heavy duty synthetic Dexron-style ATF for higher temp or so.
Good luck...
The diff has seperate fill and drain from the trans on my Automatic, but not on my friends manual. The old was ATF, I called Toyota to make sure my manual wasn`t wrong, but they said to put ATF into the diff on the auto trans. I guess I`ll just go with a synthetic ATF for the diff. Thanks, Doug
http://community.webshots.com/user/sundug
http://community.webshots.com/user/sundug
- Status
